Street, Road and Highway Projects

[quagga]

Minnesota Statute 169.225

"Subd. 2.Sidewalk and passenger prohibition. No person may operate a motorized foot scooter upon a sidewalk, except when necessary to enter or leave adjacent property."

Huh. The way "sidewalk" is defined (subd. 75 below), it is unclear if this also technically bans scooters on shared use paths (169.011):

Subd. 6.Bicycle path. "Bicycle path" means a bicycle facility designed for exclusive or preferential use by persons using bicycles and constructed or developed separately from the roadway or shoulder.

Subd. 9.Bikeway. "Bikeway" means a bicycle lane, bicycle path, bicycle route, shared use path, or similar bicycle facility, regardless of whether it is designed for the exclusive use of bicycles or for shared use with other transportation modes.

Subd. 73a.Shared use path. "Shared use path" means a bicycle facility that is (1) physically separated from motorized vehicular traffic by an open space or barrier, (2) located within either the highway right-of-way or an independent right-of-way, and (3) available for use by other nonmotorized users.

Subd. 75.Sidewalk. "Sidewalk" means that portion of a street between the curb lines, or the lateral lines of a roadway, and the adjacent property lines intended for the use of pedestrians.

[angrysuburbanite]

Anyone else gotten a chance to walk around the completed Hennepin/1st reconstruction? I'm in love with the much narrower roadway and the bikeways! It is super awesome to see the freshly-painted red bus lanes, but it is really depressing to see said bus lanes clogged with parked cars since they apparently are "weekdays only" even though buses do in fact run on weekends. The northbound lanes on Hennepin were completely parked up (including in front of some of the non-BRT bus stops), but the southbound lanes were mostly clear and have queue jumps so those were still useful for the many buses I saw today on a Sunday (!). At least if there are no parked cars they can still be used by buses.

It is really disappointing since the streetscape itself is awesome and exactly what every major street in Minneapolis should look like, but it isn't being used how it is intended at all, at least on weekends when I guess bus riders don't have to go anywhere quickly. I can't wait for Hennepin Ave in Uptown to have the same problem but during the middle of the weekday! Fun fact: of the roughly 3.4 miles of bus lanes on the E Line, only ~0.8 of those miles (23%) are functional on weekends. This will of course encourage people to utilize our highest form of bus service for trips outside of commuting hours, since the bus will continue to get stuck in traffic and also have to weave in and out of the bus lanes--wait I mean parking spaces. Yes, this city cares a lot about transit riders.

[Mdcastle]

Bloomington's code seems vague as to if escooters are allowed on MUPs. The applicable ordinance is:

§ 8.30 PROHIBITED AREAS AND ACTS.
It is unlawful for any person to operate a personal recreational vehicle

(2) On publicly owned land, that is not a dedicated street or road, including school grounds, park property, playgrounds, recreation areas and golf courses,

(4) On a public sidewalk or walkway provided or used for pedestrian travel;

So we're left with the previous question as if a MUP is legally a "sidewalk" or if a MUP is part of a "dedicated street". Also since Three Rivers specifically allows them on trails under their jursiction would that override the city ordinance?

[wingedmolotov]

Does your e-scooter go over 20mph?


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[Mdcastle]

Possibly with someone considerably lighter than me downhill with the 18.6 mph speed limiter turned off (that corresponds to 30 km/hr which I guess is a limit in a lot of other countries).

I personally don't get more than around 15-16 mph on it on flat surfaces with the throttle maxed out.

[Wezle]

I think the biggest upgrade in the Hennepin and 1st upgrades are the additions to the pedestrian realm. The sidewalk feels so much more comfortable, crossings are narrower, and the removal of the vehicle crossing at 5th where Hennepin and Central meet is 1000x nicer than what it was before. No more having to wait for 3 light cycles to cross on foot.

[wingedmolotov]

Possibly with someone considerably lighter than me downhill with the 18.6 mph speed limiter turned off (that corresponds to 30 km/hr which I guess is a limit in a lot of other countries).

I personally don't get more than around 15-16 mph on it on flat surfaces with the throttle maxed out.

Your e-scooter (and probably most) should be fine then.

"PERSONAL RECREATIONAL VEHICLE. Any self-propelled vehicle, power assisted vehicle and any vehicle propelled or drawn by a self-propelled vehicle powered by a motor having a piston displacement capacity of over 25 cubic centimeters or an electric motor that is capable of propelling the vehicle at a speed in excess of 20 mph on a flat surface, including, but not limited to, trail bikes, mini-bikes, go-carts, motorized scooters or motorized skateboards (also known as “powerboards”). Motorized golf carts operated on property principally used as a golf course are exempt from the regulations of this chapter."

[DanPatchToget]

A "slightly wider sidewalk" is still way too bumpy to ride a bicycle on, even at slower speed that kids other non "strong and fearless" types do, and eScooters aren't allowed on them.

A sidewalk doesn't have to be concrete. Could be made of asphalt, so basically a narrower trail, although even if it was made of concrete, I'm much less annoyed by the little bumps on the sidewalk, and more annoyed by the big bumps at cross streets. In some cases all that's needed is replacing the concrete pad, but in other cases there's a big difference between the elevation of the sidewalk and the cross street, so unless a lot of effort is made to smooth the transition between sidewalk/trail level and the level of the cross street it's going to be a big bump. Not to mention the blindspots at cross streets, so even if you don't have to slow down for a big bump, you'll still need to slow down to make sure it's clear before crossing. Having to do that pretty much every block, and even more if there's also driveways to deal with, makes it much slower than using a bike lane.

[twincitizen]

Lyndale Avenue reconstruction posts moved to dedicated thread: viewtopic.php?t=4759

[Korh]

Kind of a dumb question but has anyone else noticed some kind of red and white windmill on a few road signs recently and does anyone know what they are?
I saw one by my house on a walk and didn't see any wiring or antenna so I don't think it's a sensor.
Is it literally just some cheap gimmick someone thought of thinking a moving object in a driver's pov might get them to notice the sign it's attached to.

[HuskyGrad]

Kind of a dumb question but has anyone else noticed some kind of red and white windmill on a few road signs recently and does anyone know what they are?
I saw one by my house on a walk and didn't see any wiring or antenna so I don't think it's a sensor.
Is it literally just some cheap gimmick someone thought of thinking a moving object in a driver's pov might get them to notice the sign it's attached to.

Yes. That is what they are.

[COLSLAW5]

Man just venting, but they are planning to replace the road deck on the Nicollet Ave bridge over the Minnehaha creek. As part of this they are putting the bike lane behind a raised curb like on the 10th ave bridge. The problem here is they said that the bridge can't handle the load of an elevated sidewalk so the driving surface the bike lane and the sidewalk are all at the same elevation.

With this, the bike lane and the road enter at the same elevation making it not unreasonable that cars can either split the raised median or since there is a driveway at the north end there is going to be a 26 foot gap presenting itself as another driving lane as cars come speeding down the hill.

I am really happy this is getting some form of bike protection but the lack of any delineation between the "pedestrian area" and the "bike area" is unfortunate and the entry points to these areas seem downright dangerous.

o and they are also getting rid of the stairs down to the parkway as well.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pQgN9krrbkDyszG19
https://photos.app.goo.gl/m2d4iAguv9GRPpeB8

[MNdible]

OK, also just venting.

They've installed new speedbumps in Whittier. To force drivers to follow the speed limit, which is 20 mph. But the speedbumps are so aggressive that you really have to slow down to 10 mph, or risk car damage. So then people are accelerating, slamming on their brakes, and accelerating. Are we not able to design a speedbump that is traversable at the posted speed limit?

[PhilmerPhil]

Yeah the new speed bumps are awful, and they're all over town. It used to be so chill using side streets to bike across the city through the neighborhoods, but now every few blocks you're interrupted by cargo rattling speed bumps. Even worse, in areas like Whittier where there's a decent amount of traffic, you end up stuck behind the vehicles that are braking down to like 5MPH to navigate the speed bumps. So these have really been bad for side street biking, which has always been one of the joys of riding around Minneapolis. I hate them.

[Wezle]

I wish the city would put more into discouraging through traffic with modal filters rather than speed bumps. A few well placed modal filters on streets like Bryant north of Lake Street and other bike boulevards would do so much for making them pleasant streets for cycling.

[daveybabymsp]

I wish the city would put more into discouraging through traffic with modal filters rather than speed bumps. A few well placed modal filters on streets like Bryant north of Lake Street and other bike boulevards would do so much for making them pleasant streets for cycling.

They really should put modal filters on the streets that cross the greenway west of Hennepin

[thespeedmccool]

Seems like MNDOT is planning a freeway conversion for Highway 7 from 494 to about Excelsior: recommended improvements

[rhettcarlson]

It was only a matter of time before it got the partial-freeway treatment after the work east of 494 ~10 yrs ago. I'm normally not a fan of double lane roundabouts, because the context is usually arterials where they take up 2x the space of a signaled intersection, but here they might actually end up being more compact than the existing intersections (Christmas Lake Rd, Oak St, Hwy 41).

[COLSLAW5]

I struggle to see how this is a good investment of MnDOTs money. This is so of the least dense house out past 494 and expanding capacity is only going to encourage development of the wilderness out that way

[Tom H.]

The east segment seems reasonable - Williston is a dangerous intersection, 101 is terribly congested, and some of the current signalized intersections (like Vine Hill) can easily be reduced to underpasses. The corridor is relatively narrow, though, so it would be interesting to see how they squeeze some of those interchanges in.